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This weekend the New York Times published a strong piece dismantling some widely accepted Darwinist explanations for gendered mating behavior. Dan Slater doesn’t actually prove, as his title suggests, that Darwin and his followers were definitely incorrect, but does challenge the “teleological status” of evolutionary psychology, particularly worrisome in light of its historical use for terrible political ends.

…The fact that some gender differences can be manipulated, if not eliminated, by controlling for cultural norms suggests that the explanatory power of evolution can’t sustain itself when applied to mating behavior. This wouldn’t be the first time we’ve pushed these theories too far. How many stereotypical racial and ethnic differences, once declared evolutionarily determined under the banner of science, have been revealed instead as vestiges of power dynamics from earlier societies?

New Haven, CT

Alexandra Brodsky is an editor at Feministing.com, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX, a national legal education campaign against campus gender-based violence. Alexandra has written for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Nation, and she has spoken about violence against women and reproductive justice on MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NPR. Through Know Your IX, she has organized with students across the country to build campuses free from discrimination and violence, developed federal policy on Title IX enforcement, and has testified at the Senate. At Yale Law, Alexandra focuses on antidiscrimination law and is a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. Alexandra is committed to developing and strengthening responses to gender-based violence outside the criminal justice system through writing, organizing, and the law. Keep an eye out for The Feminist Utopia Project, co-edited by Alexandra and forthcoming from the Feminist Press (2015).

Alexandra Brodsky is an editor at Feministing.com, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX.

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Emma Caterine. Emma is a prison abolitionist, decriminalization advocate, socialist, and cat lover. She has written in the past for Autostraddle, RH Reality Check, The Feminist Wire, and Tits and Sass. You can find more of her writing at sassysyndicalist.tumblr.com.

Fear, perhaps more extremely than any other emotion, motivates people to make some strange and terrible decisions. Prejudice is very often such a decision. I disagree with those who want to abandon words like homophobia or transphobia: fear can make no rational sense and though it never excuses horrific decisions, it can explain them.

Transphobia is particularly apt when discussing the prejudicial attitudes of some cisgender feminists towards trans women. The idea ...

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Emma Caterine. Emma is a prison abolitionist, decriminalization advocate, socialist, and cat lover. She has written in the past for Autostraddle, RH Reality Check, The Feminist Wire, and Tits ...

As the whole internet has repeated to itself a million times by now, Jill Abramson was fired from her post as executive editor of the New York Times on Wednesday. A few possible narratives have emerged. Some say Abramson leaned in after she learned her salary was less than the previous male executive editor’s and she was kicked out for asking for a raise. Others point to her recent attempt to hire an editor without consulting her number two. All of the explanations come back to a sense that Abramson was ...

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Soraya Chemaly. Soraya is a media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights, free speech and the role of gender in politics, religion and popular culture.

Last week, irked after counting up The New York Time’s last 66 obits and finding that only seven were of women, poet Lynn Melnick tweeted the count, pointing out the imbalance to @NYTimesObituary. @NYTimesObituary, a parody account, responded with deadpan explanations, such as “After careful consideration, we believe that women have a tendency of dying less often.” Their conversation continued the next morning, which is when I joined them, totally taken in, to ask how “notable,” and “significant” were defined. Despite repeating some ...

Editor’s note: This is a guest post by Soraya Chemaly. Soraya is a media critic and activist whose work focuses on women’s rights, free speech and the role of gender in politics, religion and popular culture.